


Kirk and Khan in Star Trek Ongoing - A meta on the IDW comics series

by Cerridwen



Category: Star Trek (Comics), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Criminal trial, Gen, Genocide, Klingons, Meta, Star Trek Meta, Terrorism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8025472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerridwen/pseuds/Cerridwen
Summary: I am truly a fan of Mike Johnson’s work in the IDW Star Trek comics. I think that by and large he has done a masterful job with the characters in the reboot universe. There is one thing that has long puzzled me though and that is the level of animosity and lack of understanding and compassion that Kirk shows towards Khan.





	Kirk and Khan in Star Trek Ongoing - A meta on the IDW comics series

**Author's Note:**

> All images © CBS Studios Inc.

I am truly a fan of Mike Johnson’s work in the IDW Star Trek comics. I think that by and large he has done a masterful job with the characters in the reboot universe. There is one thing that has long puzzled me though and that is the level of animosity and lack of understanding and compassion that Kirk shows towards Khan.

Do not misunderstand me. I’m well aware of the horrific number of innocent people who died in Khan’s attack on Starfleet Headquarters and I’m not trying to deny or invalidate them. Yet in the Khan graphic novel Kirk and Spock act as the chief prosecutors in Khan’s trial.

Now first of all Mike Johnson wasn’t telling the story of Khan’s trial here, he was just using it as a framework to tell Khan’s backstory. Yet throughout the story Kirk takes on the role not only of prosecutor but also of Judge and Jury.

More and more he is sceptical of Khan’s story and makes it clear to Khan that it is him that Khan must convince.

At the end when we see Kirk and Spock talking about the outcome of Khan’s trial, Kirk describes Khan’s telling of his story as being self-serving.

His reason for this is quite accurate and very illuminating.

What Kirk says about it being human nature to write ourselves in as heroes of our own stories is very true but equally so of Kirk as it is of Khan; as is the reverse. It is equally human nature to demonize our enemies, to dehumanize them. That way all our crimes can be blamed on them and any atrocity committed against them because they are not seen as real people anymore. Kirk, as most people do has written himself in as the hero of his own story. And the hero is always good, always noble, and always right. The villain is always evil, always bad, and always wrong.

In my opinion, the Kirk of the IDW universe has written Khan in as the villain of his story, partly because of Pike and the whole business with the warp core and of course the devastation to San Francisco but also because it was the only way he could justify what he had done on the bridge of the Vengeance. When he gave Scotty the nod to stun Khan he betrayed the man who had saved his life twice and by so doing violated his own code of honour.

_“Where I come from, if someone saves your life you don’t stab them in the back.”_

If Khan really was the homicidal maniac that Kirk and the rest of his crew in the IDW universe keep calling him, if he had been planning all along to kill Kirk and his crew once he didn’t need them anymore and who had only saved Kirk as well as Spock and Uhura for his own selfish reasons then Kirk’s actions could be called justified. It wouldn’t be a betrayal but merely a pre-emptive first strike.

But if Khan is not what Kirk would have him be, but rather is just a man, however augmented, just a captain like Kirk who was trying desperately to save the lives of his crew then that takes away Kirk’s moral high ground.

One of the constant traits of James T Kirk in any timeline or universe is his certainty that he is always doing the right thing. While he can admit at times (under duress) that he doesn’t always know what he is supposed to do, he’s never been able to admit that what he did was wrong. A mistake maybe, but never morally wrong.

I think that Mike Johnson has quite accurately captured this aspect of Kirk’s character here. For while Jim Kirk is and will continue to become a great man, he is one whose faults are as great as his virtues and the Jim Kirk of this timeline is one who carries much deeper wounds and scars from his childhood then the Kirk from the original timeline. The loss of Pike, the only father figure he has ever known as well as the deaths of those the crew members who died when Khan attacked (however smaller that number would have been in comparison to those who were killed by Marcus) would be a devastating wound that would take a long time to heal. It would take a long time for Kirk to be able see past his pain in order to be able to see Khan’s and even then he would need a reason to question what he had already had decided was the truth.

This is further born out in the Khitomer Conflict arc. When questioned by Commander Kor Kirk describes Khan as a “rogue agent.”

I have to admit that I choked the first time I read that. It took me several readings for me to get past my “What the … ?! When did Kirk become such a hypocrite?!” reaction to see what Mike Johnson is doing here. In the first place Kirk could hardly admit to Kor that Starfleet had enslaved Khan by first brainwashing him and then by holding his family hostage, not when he was trying to convince Kor of his and the Federation’s innocence.

In the second place the fact that Khan was a slave would be something that Kirk would be unwilling to admit even to himself at this point. For if Khan was a slave then not only would that make him a victim but as a slave Khan would have been morally justified in rebelling. In the previous issue (IDW #24) Spock said that the Gorn attack on the miners was partially justified. By that same logic some of Khan’s attacks are partially justified for the same reasons. And that is something that Jim Kirk in this timeline cannot bring himself to admit, even to himself. (I will admit though that I’m confused that neither Kirk nor Kor brought up the fact that immediately after Khan surrendered Kirk did his level best to beat his unarmed prisoner to a bloody pulp. For a human this would be pretty conclusive proof that they weren’t allies. But by Klingon culture it might very well be considered combative foreplay which might be why Kor didn’t deem it worth mentioning and Kirk certainly wouldn’t have been proud of his actions. This may be why Mike Johnson glossed over this incident).

Kirk’s resentment and antipathy towards Khan stands in sharp contrast to his behaviour towards Yuki Sulu in this story.

As a member of Section 31 Yuki came to Qo’nos with the intention of helping to commit genocide on a planetary scale. In the attack on the First City alone Section 31 and the Romulans’ body count is in the hundreds of thousands if not millions of people and unlike Khan they intentionally targeted civilians, right down to the Klingon babies in their cribs.

Yuki Sulu’s reason for doing so is the exact same reason Nero had for destroying Vulcan.

Both of them wished to avenge the death of one woman and to ensure that no race would ever again present a threat to their home worlds. Yuki and Nero are very much alike. Her calling Nero a terrorist (which I agree he is) is the height of hypocrisy. She is as much of a terrorist as he is.

Kirk’s responses to Yuki’s actions stand in striking contrast to his treatment of Khan.

I have to admit that the first time I read this I had another “What the …?!” moment. Khan Noonien Singh and Yuki Sulu are another striking contrast to each other. The total number of people Khan killed, even in San Francisco amounts to only a fraction of the people Section 31 killed with Yuki’s help. And even in the depths of Khan’s pain and despair and rage he never intentionally targeted civilians. All his targets were military ones. Even in the Khan graphic novel, if Khan’s first attempt to escape had worked the only person who would have died would have been Admiral Marcus. Khan had no plans to attack or attempt to re-conquer the Earth. He wanted revenge only on Marcus but he didn’t go after him until he thought his crew was safe and Khan planned to take his crew and leave once that was accomplished. But if Khan had been the same kind of person that Yuki was then he would have found a way to not only destroy all of Starfleet but possibly even destroyed the entire earth to ensure that the human race could never again be a threat to his people.

It took several readings for me to understand why Mike Johnson was writing Kirk this way. Unlike during Khan’s attack on Starfleet Kirk didn’t lose anyone he cared about, not even a single member of his crew, nor was anyone else that he had an allegiance or a loyalty too harmed. In short he was not emotionally compromised as he was throughout “Into Darkness” and the Khan graphic novel. This allows the compassionate and kind Kirk that we know to shine through as it does when he races to the rescue of the Klingons.

I’m pretty sure that any comparison between Khan and Yuki Sulu never registered for Kirk within the narrative of this tale. But I think this contrast is deliberate on the part of Mike Johnson. Not only do the events in the Khitomer Conflict come chronologically immediately after the events in “Into Darkness” and the Khan graphic novel but also because in almost every single graphic novel Kirk says again and again that a Captain’s first duty is to protect his crew above and before all else.

Just like Khan who was trying to save his crew from slavery or death at the hands of the head of Starfleet and only turned to violence when there were no other options left to him or when all hope was gone (see previous metas by myself and other authors for details).

But also how utterly unlike Yuki and Section 31 who only stopped short of destroying an entire planet because they thought it better to hold entire empires hostage under fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr at: http://khantoelessar.tumblr.com/


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